Name: Tran Quan Nguyen ID:18319069

Topic: Reaction paper to Rashomon

Rashomon is a film may be seen as a film without a proper ending to solves its main

plot. However, its true values derive from the acts and reactions of the characters. Through

the film, I can see many social psychology theories and terms such as FAE, cognitive

dissonance, and so on, which exist within the characters’ acts and reactions.

In the movie, there are totally 4 different confessions or stories about a murder and

rape from the murdered husband (samurai), his wife, the bandit who murders and rapes, and a

woodcutter who is the observer. It is interesting that all the 4 stories contradict each other,

which makes the case unrevealed. In general, those 4 people all believe and claim their story

to be the only truth, while, actually, they may adjust the stories or even tell lie to benefit

themselves, with relatively perusasing reason. for example, the bandit insists that he did not

murder the husband but honorably win him in a sword fight to get his wife, or the husband

claims that he killed himself by a stagger to preserve his dignity as a nobleman. Hence they

were engaging in defensive practices to justify and protect their own practices. As they lie,

there would be no consensus between 4 different stories, which turns out that by the lack of

intersubjectivity, the court can finish with an appropriate conclusion during the movie.

In addition, in each case, it is clear to find out that the husband, the wife, the bandit

and the woodcutter all engage in fundamental attribute error. The bandit attributes his act of

raping and murdering to the situation to the wind that uncovers that lady’s face and the urging

from the wife that only one man can stay alive. Then, while the wife attributes her act of

killing her husband to his loathing and terrifying expression, the husband attributes his act of

killing himself to the situation that he needs to preserve his dignity.

Furthermore, many characters have their schemas about different people and groups

of people. For example, the bandit, through his story, believes that the nature of women is a
weakness, or the monk, who believes that human is sinful , while deadmen (in this case, the

dead husband) do not lie. Those schemas are caused schemas, which were created and

maintained through their subjective knowledge about the world. Additionally, the model of

balance theory in cognitive dissonance of Zajunc also exists in each character’s reaction. In

the story of the dead husband, the link between the husband with the wife is positive, while

the links between both husband and wife to the bandit are negative. However, as the link

between the wife and the bandit turns positive, the link between the husband and the wife

turns negative so that there would still be 2 negative links and one positive link.

In conclusion, by giving the audience the different stories of different people related

to the murder and th rape, including the observer (the woodcutter), Rashomon presents many

social psychology terms and theories within it. Personally, I am impressed by the statement of

the monk that “It’s human to lie”, which emphasizes that people do attempt to construct the

reality in accordance with their subjective interest.In our social life, there is nothing that is

completely objective, but they tend to be intersubjectively constructed to fit people’s

subjective interest by having a consensus between individuals’ interest, which make the

socially constructed reality